deadbeat

[ ded-beet ]
See synonyms for deadbeat on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. Informal. a person who deliberately avoids paying debts or neglects responsibilities.

  2. Informal. a loafer; sponger.

adjective
  1. Informal. not paying one's debts or neglecting one's responsibilities:a deadbeat parent who won't pay for college;deadbeat borrowers.

  2. Horology. noting any of various timepiece escapements that act without recoil of the locking parts from the shock of contact.

  1. Electricity. (of the indicator of an electric meter and the like) coming to a stop with little or no oscillation.

Origin of deadbeat

1
First recorded in 1760–70; dead + beat

Words Nearby deadbeat

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use deadbeat in a sentence

  • Anyway the phrase "deadbeat nation" is going to have a lot more resonance coming out of Obama's mouth than in Rubio's letter.

    'Deadbeat' Nation | Michael Tomasky | January 14, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
  • It caught a lot of people's ears just now when Obama said, "We are not a deadbeat nation."

    'Deadbeat' Nation | Michael Tomasky | January 14, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
  • When marriages fail, the deadbeat dad is the norm in American society, not the exception.

    Summer of the Single Mom | Leslie Bennetts | September 1, 2010 | THE DAILY BEAST
  • Then he makes off with another deadbeat, and starts a kind of show outside the town—this was in Port Arthur, mind.

    Menotah | Ernest G. Henham
  • The bartender, accepting the situation as generally inclusive, put his hands up along with his deadbeat patrons.

    Trail's End | George W. Ogden
  • The sparrow was deadbeat, and was travelling slowly to the north and west on a zigzag course, about two hundred feet high.

    H.M.S. ---- | Klaxon
  • I knew you looked a deadbeat, but Id no idea I was quite so bad, he said.

    The Protector | Harold Bindloss

British Dictionary definitions for deadbeat (1 of 2)

deadbeat

/ (ˈdɛdˌbiːt) /


noun
  1. informal a lazy or socially undesirable person

  2. mainly US

    • a person who makes a habit of avoiding or evading his or her responsibilities or debts

    • (as modifier): a deadbeat dad

  1. a high grade escapement used in pendulum clocks

  2. (modifier) (of a clock escapement) having a beat without any recoil

  3. (modifier) physics

    • (of a system) returning to an equilibrium position with little or no oscillation

    • (of an instrument or indicator) indicating a true reading without oscillation

British Dictionary definitions for dead beat (2 of 2)

dead beat

adjective
  1. informal tired out; exhausted

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with deadbeat

deadbeat

Defeated; also exhausted. For example, That horse was dead beat before the race even began, or, as Charles Dickens put it in Martin Chuzzlewit (1843): “Pull off my boots for me ... I am quite knocked up. Dead beat.” [Slang; first half of 1800s]

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.